Improvement in signs



W. A. JORDAN.

V Sig-us. v

Patented 0c t. 6,1874.

UNITED STATES PATENT Orrrcn.

WILLIAM A. JORDAN, OF NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA.

IMPROVEMENT IN SIGNS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 155,730, dated October 6, 1874; application filed August 23, 1873.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, WILLIAM A. JORDAN, of New Orleans, in the parish'of Orleans and State of Louisiana, have invented'a new and useful Improvement in Signs for Street- Lamps; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making part of this specification, in which Figure 1 is a perspective view. Fig. 2 is a similar view of the sign, and Fig. 3 is an elevation, showingthe manner of attaching single signs.

The same letters are employed in all the figures in the designation of identical parts.

In attaching signs to indicate the names of streets to the street-lamps, the ordinary method has been to paintthe names of the streets on the surface of the glass. I

In some cases, however, it has been done by cutting the name out of plates of metal, whichwere then fastened permanently to the frame.

Where the names are painted on the glass, it will soon come to pass that, by reason of the breaking of the glass and its replacement without having the names painted thereon, a large portion of the street-lamps will be without the signs.

When the names are on metal plates, as heretofore known and used, they have interfered with the proper cleaning of the glass behind the plates, which consequently, by the accumulation of dirt, soon becomes clouded and obscured.

My invention is intended to remedy these defects; and it consists in forming the signs upon metallic plates by cutting out the letters, or by cutting out all of a strip across the plate except the letters, or by painting on a transparent plate and suspending such plates to ,ori'under the drip of the top of the lamp by hinges, in such manner that the plates may be turned up out of the way of a person engaged in cleaning the glass.

In the annexed drawing, A is a street-lamp, of any ordinary construction, having holes bored in the edge of the drip A, or a rod, wire, strip, or other projection under the drip,

to receive the hooks or rings by which the signs are suspended. Where single signs are used rods B B are extended along the cornerpieces of the lamp-frame from the drip to the base. 0 O is a strip of metal, having the letters formed therein made to extend across two sides of the lamp. On one side it is attached to or below the drip by rings DD, and on the other by a hook, E. When the hook E is detached the sign may be swung on, the rings D D acting as hinges against the top of the lamp, so that the lower glass may be cleaned. Plates like 0 may be used attached on one side of the lamp only by rings, the lower edge being held by bifurcated catches F F on one or both sides on the rods B B. When these are detached they may be swung over the drip, as in the case of the double signs G0,

the catches being the equivalents of the hooks E The said catches may be secured to the plate or sign O in any known way-as for instance, by solder, rivets, &c. These catches are detached or disconnected from the rods B B by moving the sign or plate G, to which they are attached laterally, and lifting that end of said plate which it is desired to detach, until the free ends of the catch secured thereto can be moved past its rod B, when the plate will be moved in the opposite direction, which will enable the catch at the opposite end of the sign to be disengaged from the other rod, B, and thus leave the sign or plate free to be elevated.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In combination with a street-lamp, signs suspended from the drip thereof, whereby they may be swung over the said drip, substantially as and for the purpose specified.

2. The plates 0, suspended from the drip of a lamp and provided with bifurcated catches F F, in combination with the rods B B, substantially as and for the purpose set forth. v

In testimony whereof I have hereunto signed my name this 19th day of August, 1873, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

WILLIAM A. JORDAN. 

